Global Warming is Irreversible!? More than 6 Billion People will Perish at Century's End!?

[leftchick]

OMG! This is so fucking depressing...... :(

The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock

One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible — and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century

Jeff Goodell


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock/print

At the age of eighty-eight, after four children and a long and respected career as one of the twentieth century's most influential scientists, James Lovelock has come to an unsettling conclusion: The human race is doomed. "I wish I could be more hopeful," he tells me one sunny morning as we walk through a park in Oslo, where he is giving a talk at a university. Lovelock is a small man, unfailingly polite, with white hair and round, owlish glasses. His step is jaunty, his mind lively, his manner anything but gloomy. In fact, the coming of the Four Horsemen -- war, famine, pestilence and death -- seems to perk him up. "It will be a dark time," Lovelock admits. "But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting."

In Lovelock's view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions. "The Chinese have nowhere to go but up into Siberia," Lovelock says. "How will the Russians feel about that? I fear that war between Russia and China is probably inevitable." With hardship and mass migrations will come epidemics, which are likely to kill millions. By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes -- Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.

By the end of the century, according to Lovelock, global warming will cause temperate zones like North America and Europe to heat up by fourteen degrees Fahrenheit, nearly double the likeliest predictions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-sanctioned body that includes the world's top scientists. "Our future," Lovelock writes, "is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail." And switching to energy-efficient light bulbs won't save us. To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won't make much difference at this point, and much of what passes for sustainable development is little more than a scam to profit off disaster. "Green," he tells me, only half-joking, "is the color of mold and corruption."

If such predictions were coming from anyone else, you would laugh them off as the ravings of an old man projecting his own impending death onto the world around him. But Lovelock is not so easily dismissed. As an inventor, he created a device that helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer and jump-start the environmental movement in the 1970s. And as a scientist, he introduced the revolutionary theory known as Gaia -- the idea that our entire planet is a kind of superorganism that is, in a sense, "alive." Once dismissed as New Age quackery, Lovelock's vision of a self-regulating Earth now underlies virtually all climate science. Lynn Margulis, a pioneering biologist at the University of Massachusetts, calls him "one of the most innovative and mischievous scientific minds of our time." Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur, credits Lovelock with inspiring him to pledge billions of dollars to fight global warming. "Jim is a brilliant scientist who has been right about many things in the past," Branson says. "If he's feeling gloomy about the future, it's important for mankind to pay attention."


Lovelock knows that predicting the end of civilization is not an exact science. "I could be wrong about all this," he admits as we stroll around the park in Norway. "The trouble is, all those well-intentioned scientists who are arguing that we're not in any imminent danger are basing their arguments on computer models. I'm basing mine on what’s actually happening."


:cry:

[melody]

1. There are some chances

Beyond radical improvements in what we're doing, there's nanotech and other upcoming technologies.

[rAVES]

5. In that case time travel and wormholes too.

we're doomed... DOOMED I TELLS YA!

[melody]

11. No, nanotech actually exists ... time travel doesn't

And won't. ;)

[Javaman]

84. yet another tech solution.

okay, how do you plan to build all these new tech solutions including anything "nano"?

Do me a favor before you answer that question, google, "what's in a barrel of oil?" look at the breakdown of what types of elements are produced from one barrel.

now that a barrel of oil is roughly 90 bucks and as a result everything that is produced by that barrel of oil goes up in price, how to you expect to power the buildings, machines, computers, A/C, lights etc when this perfected "nano technology" comes on line in say, oh 10 years at the earliest? by then oil will be in the triple digit realm and everything that is a product of it will be very expensive, including the people who have to be fed to operate the machines, computers in warehouses that have lights and A/C.

nano tech, or any tech for that matter won't save us. did you know that oil is unique in the fact that it produces more product per barrel? That's because it concentrated energy or basically an energy carrier.

nothing comes close to replacing it. nothing.

so what will, not only, power the machines, but what will grease the bearings? What oil will cool the engines?

How will the workers get to and from that building?

what will they ride in, on or with?

cars, bikes, and mass transportation all exist because of fossil fuels.

Honestly, I'm not trying to lecture you or talk down to you, I'm just trying to make you see the whole picture.

we have to live simpler, reuse, recycle and compost.

coal, uranium, and oil are all running out. it's estimated at current growth, they will be effectively gone on a global use by mid century.

Technology isn't going to save it, just like any solution through out history, it requires humans to take the lead.

we have become so interdependent upon a technical solution to everything we just expect it to fix this problem as well.

but sadly, it's not.

[melody]

87. Do me a favor and Google "nanotechnology" and find out what it does

Neo-Luddite heads may explode, but the fact of the matter is technology is nothing more than human technology focused in the abstract. Nanotech has the potential to create anything out of nothing -- including fully functional crude oil equivalents. It WILL dig us out of this hole if we put some money behind it.

I find this a far better course of action than merely pouting in a corner because people won't change human nature the way I want them to or resigning myself to a common doom.

[Javaman]

88. I'm well versed in nanotech.

explain to me in basic terms just how it's going to be an energy carrier?

[melody]

94. Explain to me

... if you're well-versed, how it could keep from doing anything we want it to.
It doesn't need to be an energy carrier.

[Javaman]

97. I asked the question and by you throwing it back at me just shows me

your ignorance on the topic.

So I ask you again, explain to me how nanotech will work as an energy carrier?

And if it doesn't why? got to get energy from something. :) Last time I checked matter can not be either created or destroyed.

[melody]

108. I've answered the question

You simply aren't perceiving my answer -- probably willfully. What's your degree in?
If we're going to have a pissing contest, let's have a pissing contest. Then I'll march
out my credentials.

But at this point, you're just wanting to destroy an "opponent" and "win" a "contest".
I've got better things to do. If you want to discuss instead of argue, let me know.
Otherwise, you're on my ignore list.

[melody]

109. Incidentally, your calling yourself "Javaman" is oddly appropriate to an anthropologist ;) n/t

[Javaman]

128. I drink coffee, that's why. nt

[Zhade]

110. Nanotechnology requires energy, Melody. I think that's his point.

NT!

[melody]

111. I get his point. I've answered it. He's just arrogantly assuming he knows more than we do.

My point is, he doesn't.

Beyond that, Zhade, I'm ignoring him now. lol You want to discuss AI again? You are always polite.

[Javaman]

129. nt

[leftchick]

14. nanotech scares the crap out of me too

:scared:

Nanotechnology, fast becoming a three-trillion-dollar industry, is about to revolutionize our world. Unfortunately, hardly anyone is stopping to ask whether it's safe.



Our
Silver-
Coated
Future


http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/07fal/nano1.asp


For an industry that trades in the very, very small, projections about the potential scope of nanotechnology are gigantic. Estimates are that the industry will grow at a staggering pace in its first decade, reaching close to $3 trillion globally by 2014. The National Nanotechnology Initiative, created by President Bill Clinton in 2000, has called it "the next industrial revolution." Enthusiasts say that nanotechnology may someday enable scientists to build objects from the atom up, leading to entirely new replacement parts for failing bodies and minds. It may enable engineers to make things that never existed before, creating nanosize "carpenters" that can be programmed to construct anything, atom by atom -- including themselves. Or it may make things disappear, with nanowires that get draped around an object in a way that makes the whole package invisible to the naked eye.

As difficult as it is to comprehend how huge is the promise of nanotechnology, it's just as hard to wrap your head around just how tiny "nano" is. A nanometer is defined as one billionth of a meter, but what does that mean? The analogies are mind-boggling but not necessarily enlightening. Hearing how small things are when you're working at the nano level doesn't help you visualize anything, exactly; all it does is make you sit back and say, "Wow." If you think of a meter as the earth, goes one analogy, then a nanometer would be a marble. If you think of a meter as the distance from the earth to the sun, then a nanometer would be the length of a football field. A nanometer is one hundred-thousandth the width of a human hair. Or it is, in a particularly kinetic description, the length that a man's beard will grow in the time it takes him to lift a razor to his face.

"Things get complex down there, in terms of the physics and the chemistry," says Andrew Maynard, chief science adviser for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, established in 2005 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Pew Charitable Trust. "When you have small blocks of stuff, they behave differently than when you have large blocks of stuff."

At the nano level, some compounds shift from inert to active, from electrical insulators to conductors, from fragile to tough. They can become stronger, lighter, more resilient. These transformed properties are what account for the infinite potential applications of nanoparticles, defined as anything less than about 100 nanometers in diameter.

[lonestarnot]

30. Guess that is what future torture victims will have to endure, nano experiments, if they are not

already.

[melody]

36. Well, if the choices are irreversible planetary and species destruction OR nanotech

I'll take nanotech every time ... The good point is that any nanotech advanced enough to destroy us
can rescue us with the same technology.

The closer we get to practical implementation, the more anti-nanotech doomsday stories we'll be hearing, though.

[Javaman]

85. Want to get a glimpse of a nano future. google "nurdle"...

it's the basic component of everything made of plastic. They are quite literary everywhere.

400 quintillion are produced every year. Now just imagine those same nurdles with a brain.

[melody]

95. Not the nurdle stuff again

:banghead:

If we're going to go that far, keep in mind that any technology powerful enough to do all that is powerful enough to save ourselves from it.

If we're at that point, we can just re-engineer a new reality and resurrect everyone from the dead. LOL

[Javaman]

98. whatever dude have fun in your basement coming up with a new energy source

from dilithium crystals.

[Zhade]

112. Not a diss, but - your fervent belief in nanotech borders on a religious faith.

Just an observation.

[melody]

113. I don't have fervent belief in anything -- please read the context, Zhade.

They were throwing out hopeless, highly unlikely scenarios. I was adding a hopeful highly
unlikely scenario. The knee-jerk cynics emerged like vampires after flesh blood. lol

[Javaman]

130. Perhaps if you included

a :sarcasm: icon, people wouldn't jump down your throat.

that being said, I'm big enough to apologize now that I know you were being snarky. :)

peace.

[joshcryer]

102. Smalley was right about nanotech.

It will be limited to biological-type constructs incapable of doing the stuff that the dreamers envision of it. That does not preclude us from being able to fix the problems we have created.

[Rhythm and Blue]

2. He's become the same as the deniers.

Lovelock knows that predicting the end of civilization is not an exact science. "I could be wrong about all this," he admits as we stroll around the park in Norway. "The trouble is, all those well-intentioned scientists who are arguing that we're not in any imminent danger are basing their arguments on computer models. I'm basing mine on what’s actually happening."

Yeah. Fuck those scientists with their science and their computer models and their data and tinkering and scientific method. I'm using my gut instinct, baby. And my gut instinct tells me (there is no global warming / global warming is going to create effects far and away beyond what the most extreme climatology models predict)

[rAVES]

6. yup exactly what he said.. you nailed it...

:sarcasm:

[Harper_is_Bush]

7. No. He's basing his conclusions on observations that are not plugged into models yet.

Read this report, it explains this idea:

http://www.carbonequity.info/PDFs/Arctic.pdf

The truth is, the IPCC reports have been far too conservative.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

43. Exactly.

The IPCC is historically a process based on CONSENSUS (I.E. greater than super majority). Therefore it is extremely conservative in its projections and is also limited in methodology. For example the IPCC did not even attemt consensus as to what will happen with the Greenland Ice Shelf and Antarctica land-based ice mass (collectively representing about a 40 foot rise in sea level) because it was considered too speculative for consensus.

[Duppers]

48. The IPCC is indeed too conservative

Most people are missing the most important issue of our time. We're are nearing Niagara Falls in our pleasure boats and most don't know it.

I urge all to read all of this Rolling Stone article and every thing that can be found on global warming. And WAKE UP.

[hatrack]

71. James Hansen - "If this is the best we can do, perhaps we should be doing farming or something else"

He's talking here about the IPCC's underestimation of the speed of events.



Speaking at the launch of the full 2007 IPCC report on the impacts of global warming, the co-chair of
Working Group 2, Professor Martin Parry, told his audience that: "We are all used to talking about
these impacts coming in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. Now we know that it's us."
He said destructive changes in temperature, rainfall and agriculture were now forecast to occur
several decades earlier than thought (Adam, 2007b).

The speed of change can in itself worsen impacts. Leemans and Eickhout (2004) found that species'
adaptive capacity decreases rapidly with an increasing rate of climate change: five percent of all
ecosystems cannot adapt more quickly than 0.1°C per decade over time. Forests will be among the
ecosystems to experience problems first because their ability to migrate to stay within the climate
zone they are adapted to is limited. If the rate is 0.3°C per decade, 15 percent of ecosystems will not be able to adapt. If the rate should exceed 0.4°C per decade, all ecosystems will be quickly destroyed, opportunistic species will dominate, and the breakdown of biological material will lead to even greater emissions of CO2. This will in turn increase the rate of warming (Kallbekken and Fuglestvedt, 2007). Temperatures are now increasing at a rate of more 0.2°C per decade with some IPCC scenarios showing the speed rising to 0.4°C per decade by mid-century, to which few species will be able to adapt. Another study of the IPPC report's low- and high-emission scenarios found 12-39% and 10-48% of the Earth's terrestrial surface may respectively experience novel and disappearing climates by 2100 AD (Williams, Jackson et al, 2007).

Speed of change and uncertainty impel us to consider the worse-case outcomes, not just the scenarios
considered to be the most likely currently. Pittock (2006) argues persuasively that "Uncertainties in
climate change science are inevitably large, due both to inadequate scientific understanding and to
uncertainties in human agency or behavior. Policies therefore must be based on risk management,
that is, on consideration of the probability times the magnitude of any deleterious outcomes for
different scenarios of human behavior. A responsible risk management approach demands that
scientists describe and warn about seemingly extreme or alarming possibilities, for any given scenario
of human behavior (such as greenhouse gas emissions), even if they appear to have a small
probability of occurring. This is recognized in military planning and is commonplace in insurance.
The object of policy-relevant advice must be to avoid unacceptable outcomes, not to determine (just)
the (apparently) most likely outcome."

It is something that has not always been done, leaving the science in crucial areas looking flat-footed and behind-the-times. Hansen sets the stage: "For the last decade or longer, as it appeared that climate change may be underway in the Arctic, the question was repeatedly asked: 'is the change in the Arctic a result of human-made climate forcings?' The scientific response was, if we might paraphrase, 'we are not sure, we are not sure, we are not sure…yup, there is climate change due to humans, and it is too late to prevent loss of all sea ice.' If this is the best that we can do as a scientific community, perhaps we should be farming or doing something else" (Hansen and Sato, 2007b).

EDIT

http://www.carbonequity.info/PDFs/Arctic.pdf

[DLnyc]

60. Very good reading!

Long but worth every word.

(snip)
But the lack of tested projections is not to say that large parts of Greenland may not have already passed their "tipping point", just because there are not strict, verifiable models to support the assertion. The same was true of the Arctic sea ice, which was why the conservatism of the scientific method meant that there was a failure to predict the events until they were all but upon us, at which point even those scientists who had speculated as to what was about to happen were "shocked" at the sea ice loss in the northern summer of 2007.

Thus James Hansen identifies a "scientific reticence" that "in at least spme cases, hinders communication with the public about dangers of global warming...Scientific reticence may be a consequence of the scientific method. Success in science depends on objective skepticism. Caution, if not reticence, has its merits. However, in a case such as ice sheet instability and sea level rise, there is a danger in excessive caution. We may rue reticence, if it serves to lock in future disasters" (Hansen, 200a).
(snip)

[Tesha]

34. Unfortunately, the models are turning pessimistic.

Many of the scientists now openly state that the only reason
that their reports are so rosy is that they've deliberately
suppressed what they really believe about just how bad
the news really is.

If the IPCC report weren't edited with the "help" of
governments, it would be a far more bleak report
than it is today.

Tesha

[dysfunctional press]

46. if the truth were known, the riots would already be starting.

and after all- trying to stave off the end of civilization and/or humanity as we know it isn't an inherently BAD plan.

[joshcryer]

107. Nah, they're getting more precise. Go to RealClimate.org.

The models aren't being "hidden." The mainline, statistically accurate model just gets 'worse.' Otherwise the models are free for anyone to dessiminate and create their horrorific predictions upon. The scientists, however, will play it safe and make sure that their models are as accurate as possible, without throwing out baseless doom and gloom scenarios.

[Javaman]

86. did you actually read the article? nt

[hobbit709]

3. About 74,000 years ago

the human species was culled by climate change from a supervolcano eruption. Maybe it's time again.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Yup. This won't be the first time, nor will it be the last. nt

[burythehatchet]

17. That is why Shiva is equally prominent. Death and rebirth.

granted, the death part is going to be ugly.

[malaise]

4. Bush and Cheney might blow us all up before that n/t

[Amonester]

25. Yikes. That's 14 months and 29 days left, MAX.

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

and then:

:scared:

and then:

:puke:

and then:

:web:

[Canuckistanian]

9. Just look at the posts from DUer GliderGuider in E/E

He spells it all out. The future of mankind in the 21st century is not going to be pretty.

He makes no assumptions about political threats, just the cold, hard mechanics of living in a world without our "one-time gift" of cheap petroleum energy.

[karlrschneider]

12. And that is too often totally overlooked in formulating scenarios.

Cheap petroleum: a one-shot, one-century phenomenon. And it's going away awfully fast. :eyes:

[pretzel4gore]

38. what about all the old growth forests?

or the fish stocks. According to Farley Mowat, who researched the east coast fishery when european fishing fleets first visited, the codfish were at times so thick that baskets could be used to haul them out- similar to when the smelt run in the spring, but Mowat marvelled that this was recorded as occurring way out at sea! And there are so many other examples of what a certain exploitative mentality found (the streets of gold, rivers of honey ideal) that destroyed everything in the rush for easy profits. As far as gas and oil, has anyone ever suggested that it actually serves a purpose where it is, in its bulk, as a balancing agent keeping the planet aligned or something? The unspoken conviction that survival of the fittest means the greediest and quickest to seize the advantage was the only yardstick of success in the history books might find itself unwinding what's left of the true lifeline with the actual death of everything a few turns in, and the line playing out with the same heartless determination that had always seemed the measure of a good man's success.
hahaha
fukkem

[joshcryer]

103. Yeah, but petroleum energy is pretty dang abundant.

Colorado and Utah have more tappable oil reserves than all the other worlds reserviors combined. We're no where near done using up the oil.

[kurth]

10. Message: We're Fucked - Prepare For War - Pollute At Will

[cali]

13. he may well be right, but so what?

you can't live like he's right. there's no point in that. And in the greater scheme of things, species thrive and die. Why should we be an exception?

[tekisui]

15. Humanity will survive, if Humanity deserves it.

And Humanity will expire, if Humanity deserves it.

If we, as humans, can collectively come together and rise above our habits, we could save ourselves. We will never destroy the planet, only ourselves. We can harm the planet, but Earth has time on her side. No matter our affect on her, in a few million years, we'll be forgotten. We as a species, we come and go.

We should, however, do all we can to preserve and protect our home and each other.

[Lorien]

52. Yes you can live like he's right. It pays to be aware and to prepare

for what may come. Don't breed, for example. Do what you can to limit your footprint on earth, become self sufficient. Don't live near the ocean. The "so what"? attitude is what has gotten us to this point in the first place. :grr:

[cali]

61. you seem to have misundertood what i was saying

I meant: Live as if you can make a difference, as if it's not too late. If everthing crashed tomorrow, I'd be in reasonable shape what with a small green house. My footprint on earth is very,very small. I live in the Vermont mountains in a house with passive solar, gravity fed water, every light bulb is CF. I drive less than 20 miles a week. The "so what" is to his claim that it's too late to do anything, not to the realities of climate change.

I doubt you live a life anymore ecologically sensitive than mine, but oops I'm a breeder. God I hate that word- and anyone telling me I shouldn't have had a child.

Take your self-righteous crap elsewhere.

[The Straight Story]

16. I am switching back my light bulbs

:)

[leftchick]

18. thanks

I really needed a laugh. :)

[Deja Q]

28. And I now drive to work - despite living less than a mile away...

Just like how that coworker, at lunch, sits in her car with the engine running all hour. (now THAT is lunacy...)


(note: Okay, I still walk. But what I said of that dippy co-worker is the truth.)

[autorank]

19. Lovelock is quite reputable. Nice work mankind! You f'ing blew it!

This is a technical description of what would happen right now, assuming that we can survive the social calamity. We can't. That's it. Unless people get their heads out of the sand. But they won't and the corporate Quislings and shills who lied their way across the corporate media distribution channels will have to face up to the fact that they are the worst imaginable traitors, to the whole species.

[leftchick]

24. I weep for my babies

and my babies' babies. :cry:

[autorank]

42. It's just an outrage. I want trials and convictions of those responsible.

All perfectly legal, of course, but real justice!

Babies babies...that's a stretch I'm afraid.

[Duppers]

51. my thoughts exactly

I've been in tears lately because my hubby and I have recently come to the same conclusion as Lovelove. My son, now 20, doesn't think he should have children knowing what they'll be facing.

I cried again, reading the article. I wish I had more faith in mankind; I wish every nation on earth would stop polluting and adopt the one child rule. I wish I were wrong about all of this.

To quote the article:

'As for the doom that awaits us, Lovelock may well be wrong. Not because he's misread the science (although that’s certainly possible) but because he's misread human beings.

Few serious scientists doubt that we're on the verge of a climate catastrophe.

But for all Lovelock's sensitivity to the subtle dynamics and feedback loops in the climate system, he is curiously tone-deaf to the subtle dynamics and feedback loops in the human system. He believes that, despite our iPhones and space shuttles, we are still tribal animals, largely incapable of acting for the greater good or making long-term decisions for our own welfare.

"Our moral progress," says Lovelock, "has not kept up with our technological progress."'


I fear he is right.

[porphyrian]

20. We'll see. - n/t

[RestoreGore]

21. So we just give up?

BULL.

[lonestarnot]

31. Hell no!

:toast: RESIST

[joshcryer]

105. That's the basic sentiment from this POV.

And a lot of people buy it. They sit back waiting for the end of the world, waiting for Peak Oil, waiting for global warming to burn the world. Those people, in my opinion, are out of touch with reality.

[Deja Q]

22. Scientists can solve the problem.

We need all we can get.

I've no problems with globalizing this field, except no American job should be ditched in the process. Much like the war on terror, every country has to take part.

Maybe I should go back to college for that field and risk taking out those loans...

[lonestarnot]

32. Yes you should if you are young enough.

[Deja Q]

37. Age 35 - too young?

[Zodiak]

83. I'm 36...just got my PhD this year

...you would not be the old man in the department, I promise you.

[lonestarnot]

90. Nope, just right.

Go for it!

[Dora]

124. I just talked with a young woman graduating in December.

She's finishing her BA - I don't remember what major. But we were talking grad school, and she's going into Disaster Management.

Now, that's foresight.

[Az]

23. Particulate polutants have been masking global warming for decades

Global Dimming has been actually cooling the planet while greenhouse gases heated the planet. Our efforts to correct particulate pollution have been succeeding but this has been revealing that global warming is far further along than we ever realized. And the fact that global dimming has been countering global warming means that now that it is being removed global warming is accelerating at an even greater pace.

[jgraz]

65. You saw the same Nova program I did ;)

Scared the shit outta me.

[Cronus Protagonist]

26. All we have to do is outsource the problem

Isn't there someone in India who can help us?

[Deja Q]

27. They're all cheap enough, but if their work on Vista is any indication,

they'll make so many rudimentary spelling and grammatical errors that everyone reading their notes would misinterpret them and create a synthetic black hole instead of the environmental panacea that theoretically does exist.

I apologize for sounding so cynical.

[entanglement]

73. LOL

So who'll be blamed for global warming when the end is near? Mexicans, Chinese, Arabs, Muslims, Indians, Blacks, Gays, Feminists, Atheists, Jews, Marxists or some combination thereof? I guess we'll be arguing about that even while holding on to the last sinking bit of terra firma in 2100. ;)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. "There is no safety in the cosmos." - Alan Watts

[NJCher]

33. isn't it just amazing?

Amazing that mankind can be individually intelligent but cannot n a wise or smart way as a whole.

No plan is a plan. That's what our leaders' plan is: to just let it all happen around us.

I find only small satisfaction that as a kid, I read ZPG (Zero Population Growth) and got myself sterilized as soon as I was old enough. I would be worried sick right now about my offspring, if I'd had any.



Cher

[MedleyMisty]

39. No kids here either

Even if my husband and I thought we'd be good parents and had a lot more money, there's already billions more humans than there needs to be and the future is most likely going to suck. A lot. And no, that's not "end of times" doomsaying. It's based on my own logical reasoning after looking at the evidence for human-caused climate change and the predictions of its effects and looking at the political and social climate.

And no, I haven't given up and my life is not full of depression and despair. I just focus on the present and enjoy it and try to not add too much to the damage that we're doing and do what I can to raise consciousness about it so other people might be motivated to change. I'll deal with the future when it gets here.

[Lorien]

55. No kids here either. I would have loved to have been a mother

but I can't imagine any act more selfish than bringing another soul into this mess, knowing what I've known for so long.

[tblue37]

35. Unfortunately, this is what I actually believe.

I want grandchildren, but I find myself hoping I don't get any. My kids (26 and 28 now) probably won't live to see the end, though they will see it approaching--but if I have grandkids, they will. Too sad to contempltate.

[UnyieldingHierophant]

40. In the prophetic words of Riddick..."it had to end some time"

[NeoGreen]

41. What do we tell the children? n/t

[Cronus Protagonist]

47. What will THEY tell THEIR children about us?

Food for thought.

[Lorien]

53. You are too optimistic

we'll see the end-at least anyone under 50 will.

[Cronus Protagonist]

54. We have to prevent that

I think we all agree.

[ConsAreLiars]

44. He is also a professional liar.

And a shill for the nuclear power industry. The following snipped from: http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock There is much more.

In 1973 Lovelock published the results of his work on CFCs in the scientific journal Nature. He concluded about CFCs that "the presence of these compounds constitutes no conceivable hazard". He was totally wrong, a fact that still causes him great embarrassment. In his autobiography Homage to Gaia he describes the mistake as a 'gratuitous blunder'. <2> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_ozone) <3> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_Homage1)

Later in the book, he also acknowledges that he appeared in a 1974 US Congressional Hearing on the future of CFCs as 'the principle witness for the industry's defence' <4> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_Homage2).

...

Lovelock denies that Chernobyl has caused massive human health impacts. He maintains a position that there were only 45 deaths.
...
A recent report by leading scientists and researchers commissioned by European parliamentary groups, Greenpeace International and medical foundations in Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Scandinavia and other countries suggests that the number of casualties may have bee far higher:

"At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine"<7>

[Odin2005]

45. Lovelock doesn't believe anti-nuclear BS? The HORROR, the HORROR!!!

:eyes:

Sorry, I believe old-school enviromentalists like Lovelock over NIMBYist scaremongers.

[ConsAreLiars]

50. Yeah, a man with a lifelong history of whoring for the mega-corporations is someone you would trust.

That silly Gaia hypothesis was just a BS cover for saying "don't worry, be happy."

The chemical and nuclear poisoning industries were just two cases of his willingness to say whatever his masters asked of him. If you have stock in GE or Westinghouse, and are happy to see the worl poisoned for your own personal profit, then your advocacy is as understandable as his. Otherwise, you are just being a useful tool.

More from http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock

Lovelock was also one of the original signatories of the 'Declaration in Support of Protecting Nature With High-yield Farming and Forestry.' Other signatories are Patrick Moore, the ex-Greenpeace founder and now Greenpeace's bete noir, who runs an anti-environmantal PR company called Greenspirit Strategies, Dennis Avery of the Centre for Global Food Issues which is part of to the right-wing Hudson Institute and Eugene Lapointe one of the leaders of the international 'Wise Use Movement' and World Conservation Trust Foundation /IWMC World Conservation Trust and Norman Boulag, a rabidly pro-GM scientist. <23> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_declaration)

Dennis Avery is one of the main people behind many of the attacks on organic food and author of the inspirationally-titled Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming. Avery sees himself as a missionary, promoting the high-tech farming industries: pesticides, irradiation, factory farming, and the newcomer: biotechnology. <24> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_Hudson) <25> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_Prwatch1)

Avery is behind misleading claims that organic food is dangerous and is the originator of the 'E. Coli myth' - that people eating organic foods are at a significantly higher risk of food poisoning. He calls organic food a 'gigantic marketing lie'. <26> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_Prwatch1)

Eugene Lapointe runs the organisation the International Wildlife Management Consortium, a coalition of international hunting, shooting, whaling, right-wing and wise use organisations. <27> (http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock#endnote_Lapointe)

Other signatories include Bruce Ames, the controversial cancer scientist on the board of climate-sceptic Fred Singer's SEPP and a Director of the George C Marshall Institute and academic advisor to the Reason Foundation, and Klaus Amman, a vehemently pro-GM scientist. <28>

[autorank]

62. Thanks for this. I'd accepted this guy without enough review.

I'm not saying his predictions are wrong. In fact, right now, with a linear view of the fugure, we are doomed. But the material you present is really on target as to his bias. Always something to learn.

[ConsAreLiars]

63. The danger of the tipping point is real, but

his advice that we as a society can do nothing, and regulations and such are too late, is the big lie. A lie that serves the same purpose as the "Gaia Hypothesis" that doing nothing is fine because the Earth Spirit will fix everything. Or we can just murder one another in the effort to claim a survivable niche. His "do nothing" advice is now updated to "do nothing socially useful, run away, grab what you can, and kill those who get in your way." The Ayn Rand school of social responsibility.

[leftchick]

91. Thank you cons

I appreciate other views on this. I really can not wrap my head around "too late" scenarios.

[ConsAreLiars]

121. The danger is clear and present, but Lovelock is a hack.

His ideological bias led him to advocate doing nothing to constrain capitalisms "natural" workings because Gaia would take care of things, then sell himself to the nuclear power power interests for grant money, then to advocate against taking any meaningful action because it is too late and his Gaia garbage was all BS.

He is a perfect example of a bright talented individual whose ideological blinders are so constraining that he uses his talent only to support his biases.

Obviously there are many easy solutions to the problem of global climate poisoning. The one real difficulty is that the power of the mega-corporations that profit from the destruction of our habitat is almost insurmountable.

[bananas]

92. The Gaia hypothesis has been disproved.

"In 1988 and 2000, the American Geophysical Union dedicated their annual Chapman Conference (an invitation-only symposium attended by the top authorities in earth science - a BIG DEAL in geosciences) to an examination of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis."

"His hypothesis was falsified and thoroughly discredited."

more: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=62400&mesg_id=62964

[NJCher]

64. thanks for your post, Cons

I was finding it hard to sleep, having read this. I appreciate the research you posted.



Cher

[ConsAreLiars]

123. Whenever doomsayers tell us to give up, stop working for change,

and just act according to our most primitive fear-based impulses, you know they are are not on "our" side, and they are lying.

[Odin2005]

72. You obviously don't understand the Gaia Hypothesis.

It's not an excuse to do nothing. It's lead to major new avenues of research opening up on how the climate and biosphere functions.

Oh, and I doubt that "nuclear spin" website is a source of unbiased information.

[Duppers]

56. nice try. nt

nt

[ConsAreLiars]

57. What a brilliant put down. You must be impressed with your wit.

In fact, you and I almost certainly agree that the danger is clear and present. But Lovelock is a con artist. He claimed CFC's were nothing when he was paid to say that. He claimed nuclear waste was warm and fuzzy and harmless. He is a professional liar.

[Duppers]

58. well

guess you do know more than I, including Lovelock's motivation.
I just thought you were being totally dismissive of his conclusions.

[ConsAreLiars]

59. He has ALWAYS argued for doing nothing. This shows his motivation.

And explains his backing by the mega-corporation. Once upon a time he said not to worry, Gaia will take care of the mass pollution of the biosphere. Now he says it is too late to bother. Again serving the Monster by arguing (implicitly) that reducing CO2 emissions or conservation are pointless. He is a very dangerous operative.

[joshcryer]

106. And A LOT of people buy it.

A lot of yuppie hemp wearing tards run around demeaning the rest of society while they pretend their vegan lifestyle and culture "waiting for the end times" (Peak Oil, etc). It's insane.

[lovuian]

49. Mother Nature is ticked

Our children's world is going to be different

[earth mom]

66. After reading the entire thread: What does Al Gore & RFK Jr. think of this guy? Anyone know? nt

[Beerboy]

67. Why would the death of 6 billiion people be Bad Thing ?n/t.

Just wondering.

[Marrah_G]

78. If you don't know then nothing we say is going to teach you.

[joshcryer]

100. The same reason the death of a million other species.

Does that answer your question?

[HamdenRice]

68. 6 billion are guaranteed to die by century end w/ or w/o global warming!

I know, it's a silly semantic point, but I'm a stickler for precise expression:

There are 6 billion people on earth right now. Almost all of them will be dead by age 90. Therefore, 6 billion people will die within the 93 years it will take until 2100 -- global warming or not.

I think the OP means there will be 6 billion additional deaths, or the population will be 6 billion lower than projected.

[SoCalDem]

69. There is a tipping point, and I think we did reach it a while back.

When one looks at the "good" places to live on this planet, and what overpopulation of them has done TO them, it's hard to be optimistic..

There IS more room to populate, BUT there's that pesky problem of habitat destruction in order to actually LIVE there, and then there's the waste issue and the water issue..

Earth has always "shrugged off the extras" from time to time, but that was before we had the machinery and "technology" to rerally do a lot of damage to the whole system.. We managed that in less than 100 years..

[leftchick]

70. Much more on Dr. Lovelock here

http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/lovebioen.htm

The Ages of GAIA

The Earth, James Lovelock proposes, behaves as if it were a superorganism, made up from all the living things and from their material environment. When he first sketched out his brilliant Gaia theory in the 1970s, people around the world embraced it, and within a short time Gaia has moved from the margins of scientific research to the mainstream.

James Lovelock argues that such things as the level of oxygen, the formation of clouds, and the saltiness of the oceans may be controlled by interacting physical, chemical and biological processes. He believes that "the self-regulation of climate and chemical composition is a process that emerges from the rightly coupled evolution of rocks, air and the ocean - in addition to that of organisms. Such interlocking self-regulation, while rarely optimal - consider the cold and hot places of the earth, the wet and the dry - nevertheless keeps the Earth a place fit for life." The New York Times Book Review has called his arguments in favor of Gaia "plausible and above all illuminating."

New fields of research have been opened by this pathbreaking concept. Lovelock adds : "if we see the world as a superorganism of which we are a part - not the owner, nor the tenant, not even a passenger - we could have a long time ahead of us and our species might survive for its "alloted span". It all depends on you and me."

[seemslikeadream]

76. Awake from your dreamtime

This is the only video I could find of the song

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3670661177694814752&q=howard+jones+guardians+of+the+breath&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

They were guardians of the breath
Trusted with those precious chances
Keeping Gaia from the fear of death
Balances must be defended

To take only what they must
(Borrowed from the future)
Live in lovers of a global home
(Our children will remember)

Guardians slept while comfort came
The vapours poison, the acid rain fell
The spirit cut from earthly bounds
The creature stirred the pain

How much abuse can she take
(Awake from your dreamtime)
The lines are drawn our justice awaits
(Will the guardians surrender)

The forest bare, a desert born
The life pushed out
They sold her cheaply
All for a shilling for next weeks treat
A marvel that had taken ten thousand years

To take only what they must
(Borrowed from the future)
Live in lovers of a global home
(Our children will remember)

They are guardians of the breath
Trusted with those precious chances
They are guardians of the breath
Balances must be defended

[leftchick]

79. thank you SLaD

:(

[The Stranger]

74. Isn't that the life cycle of a plague species?

[Ganja Ninja]

75. Nature will solve global warming for us since we won't.

Probably the best place to be is on an under populated Pacific island that has enough elevation that sea level rise won't matter.

[stuntcat]

77. I just finished Lovelock's latest book

In the beginning I hated how he seemed to say nuclear energy is our only way out, but by the end of the book I have to agree.. we need a LOT of energy, more than we can get from clean renewables just yet, and we need to switch right NOW away from burning the fossil fuels.
I didn't know that "Gaia" was originally Lovelock's idea.. I think of Earth as a beautiful living being but I did it without Lovelock I think. Anyway I'm on the Earth's side, I think it can chew us up and spit us out and in a few thousand years be beautiful again.
At least I didn't bring any new lil' babies into this century from hell :) I'm glader every day I made that decision, even if some of my family's gonna hold it against me for the rest of their fat pathetic lives :p

[leftchick]

80. Tim Flannery on Nuclear Energy

another who convinced me it is the only solution and damn if that isn't sad....

http://www.theweathermakers.com/

[stuntcat]

81. (ty)

I just ordered his book, thanks :)

[leftchick]

89. I heard him on Fresh Air last winter

He is definitely one of the best this subject.

[RainDog]

93. Gaia reframes native american religion for western thought

Gaia, as you know, is the mythological/anthropomorphic earth from Greek myth. Lovelock uses this underpinning of western culture history to discuss something others lived for centuries.

I don't think nuclear power is the answer... I think France has shown that such an investment is not the future.. I'd have to find the articles, so just take that with a grain and maybe google since I'm lazy right now.

however, the idea that humans are one part of a living earth/universe is the basic concept of most native american religious/life practice (before the rez, I guess you should say.)

The Hopi have a story about the end of this current age on earth too, and it is strange but also strangely resonant. They've been saying to live in the mtns b/c of floods, to learn their way of argriculture (very small scale, like square foot gardening in a way, mixing diff. plants in a "teepee" structure to save water... they said that the "hippies" would align with them among the whites and work to help them to help others understand that life as it is lived is killing the earth and our children and children's children. (That's part of the idea of ... what are the possible outcomes for my present decision for seven generations beyond me.)

modern capitalism can't think beyond the next fiscal year, or the next stockholder's meeting.

Koyaanisqatsi, or life out of balance is the hopi way of defining industrial and post-industrial life. They also predict some dire things for the future... their apocalyptic vision is directed at turtle island (here) not the middle east, though the whole world is affected and brought into the "5th world." The thing with native american prophecy is that it is not absolute. The stories are always framed as "this is the future unless you do something different to change the path you are now on."

I'm not a religious person, but Hopi and other native american views resonate deeply in my soul or mind or epigenetic memory or whatever it is.

[joshcryer]

99. We use less energy than algae.

We don't need "a lot" of energy. We just utilize resources that do not act within equllibrium with the ecosystem. We're nothing other than that.

[Hydra]

82. It's all up to us

The corps and the elite want most of us gone, and they're telling us how to do it, and telling us that there is no other solution.

I call massive bullshit.

The biggest problem is us, though. Can we really work together to make a better world, or will we fight each other at someone else's command?

That is the profound question, and the one which will determine whether we should survive or not. Can we embrace each other, or will we continue to be tribal?

[MedleyMisty]

96. I vote for fighting and tribalism

I hate to say it, but I was thinking today that DU should probably be self-selected to be some of the most open-minded and non-prejudiced people in the US.

And yet look at how fast we are to draw the lines and hate on each other instead of listening. For instance, today my ignore list has been growing with the hate from both sides of the class divide. And heck, I have to sit on my fingers to keep from being snarky as much as I want because actually listening to people who are striking out in pain is hard, especially if you see them as striking out against you. It takes more strength than most people have to say, "I hear your pain." and listen without judging to someone who is using a group you belong to as a scapegoat for their problems. Especially when your group is the one not in power and institutionally oppressed by the other group.

Although maybe it's just as hard when your group is doing the oppressing - only oppressor group I belong to is white, and maybe because everything but my skin pigments is against me I don't have a problem listening to the anger of people whose skin pigments are against them. But I imagine that if I was born into the world a rich white man I might have a problem with understanding why everyone seemed to hate me so much for stuff that didn't seem to really be my fault and I probably would strike right back at them in pain and fear.

Unless we have a lot more time than what our scientists have observed so far says we do, we're probably going to go down hating and killing each other.

[Hydra]

132. And that's why it's the great challenge

I think it could work- I vote for enlightened selfishness as the vehicle. When everyone has what they need to survive and thrive, when people have power and as a friend of mine says often, "something to lose- a stake in their future", then I think things will get better.

It's not going to be easy, though, and the odds are certainly against us.

[joshcryer]

101. Lovelock, Derick Jensen, et al all lack insight.

They lack the understanding of human ingeniuity and the irrevocible tasks that humanity will undertake regardless of the scenario. We aren't a bunch of unintelligent dinos.

[mark414]

104. so long, it's been good to know ya

[robertpaulsen]

114. Living in LA County, I think I'm experiencing the effects of GW right now.

I'm not in an area asked to be evacuated yet, but it's pretty bad breathing here.

:hi:

[leftchick]

116. stay safe robert

:hug:

[tavalon]

115. I'm a Gaian and came to this conclusion quite a while ago

The world will survive, but most of us will not. I would like to see some of us survive but we can't support the numbers we have chosen to populate the earth with and we are holding steadfastly to shifting sand and the decreasing amounts of oil it contains and so we must go the way of the dinosaur. We didn't and continue to not do a good job here so hopefully, those few who survive will heed the lessons that will be learned so catastrophically. It's funny, I feel so frightened by the current political situation but not the least bit frightened about how we will be removed from Gaia almost completely in about a century. That just seems so much cleaner and so much more necessary than the fascism that we face in this decade.

[ideagarden]

117. Where are the scientists?

First off I'm a chemist, scientist and at one time I was also duped.

Google nanotech? WTF? You have no idea! As a species we must increase our efficiency and improve the density of our environment & energy capabilities. Nuclear energy is one of the only ways to do this. Before you go jump down my throat, do the research about it. Uranium can sustain us for another 1000+ years. By that time hopefully we've developed something better. Yes its there in the groud people.

These people: Gore supporters, global warming extremists, have one thing in common, they want to exterminate people. WHAT? No not Gore right? Well guess what the IPCC is a joke; 100's of scientists took their name off the report. Gore has a hedge fund and so he and his buddies in the banking guild can trade your carbon. They want to make money on carbon derivatives to trade what you exhale. Blood and Gore (the name of their fund); they want your money and the government's money.

Have you hear them rant that third world countries should not be developed? That means: let them die. This is eugenics or the killing off of a large population based on Social Darwinism. Sorry folks CO2 is not the cause of global warming as Big Al says. Do we need to curb it? Damn right we do, because most burning of fossil fuels cause pollution, soot, NOx's SOx's which are much more worry some than what we exhale. What don't you global warming people plant some trees? Stop wasting paper (made from trees)! Bike to work? Support higher fuel standards? Put solar cells on your roofs?

I'll tell you why: you don't understand science. They don't want you too, because if their eugenics ways happen, the hedge fundies can go rape undeveloped countries of their resources. Come on... this was published in the rolling fucking stones. NOT Nature or Science or even fresh off the press from Murdoc New York Toilet

for more see:
http://www.larouchepac.com/material/2007/02/23/fraud-global-warming-true-c02-record-buried-under-gore.html

don't be fooled!

[joshcryer]

118. Beck is crazy. See RealClimate.org

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/beck-to-the-future/

Al Gore's "carbon offset" idea is merely a way to *profit* off of being environmentally friendly. The market creates value all the damn time. Al Gore is merely showing how being environmentally friendly needn't have a negative economic impact.

[Duppers]

119. Ha! Here we have another LaRoucher, folks!

[Admiral Loinpresser]

120. Thanks, LaDouche-Bag. n/t

[Dora]

125. OMG!!! A real live... why, I've never seen one this new! It's sooo cute!

Welcome to DU!

[hatrack]

131. Where are the scientists? They're off at Area 51, meeting with Lyndon . . .

Next up - Ayn Rand!!

Can't wait!!

[earth mom]

122. OK-I found a couple of Rolling Stones interviews with Al Gore where he talks about Lovelock-

From 2006:

Al Gore 3.0

At the end of the movie, you make it sound like it's not going to be that hard to stop global warming -- we'll just change our lifestyles and turn this thing around. But isn't that too optimistic? The scientist James Lovelock says that by the end of this century, most of the Earth will be uninhabitable -- the planet's population will plummet by eighty percent.

Lovelock is truly a visionary. But I disagree with his darker view. He's forgotten more about science than I'll ever learn -- but I think I know one thing about politics that he doesn't. Sometimes, the political system is like the climate system, in that it's nonlinear. It can seem to change at a snail's pace and then suddenly cross a tipping point beyond which it shifts into a shockingly fast gear. All of a sudden, change that everybody thought was impossible becomes matter of fact. In 1941, it was absurd to think the U.S. could build a thousand airplanes a month to fight the Second World War. By 1943 that was a real small number. Imagine where we would be today if Bush, after properly invading Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden, had not unwisely invaded a country that had no role in the attack on us. He could have pursued the terrorists and called upon the United States to become independent of oil.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10688399/al_gore_30/print


From 2007:

Al Gore's Fight Against The Climate Crisis

Many climate scientists say, off the record, that they have grave doubts that we'll be able to slow global warming in time to stave off a planetwide catastrophe. James Lovelock, one of the world's most esteemed scientists, told us recently that he believes it is already too late to save ourselves by buying Priuses and changing light bulbs - that we need to begin preparing for life on a different planet. Do you agree with that?

I agree that we're not going to solve this problem by buying Priuses and changing our light bulbs. But driving hybrids and choosing better technology is still important in two respects. First, it makes a small contribution to reducing CO2. And second, when people make changes in their own lives, they are much more likely to become part of a critical mass of public opinion and to support the bigger policy changes that are going to be needed to really solve the problem.

Another part of Lovelock's analysis I agree with is that some degree of change in the planet's climate is now clearly unavoidable. Some is already beginning to take place, and a good deal more is programmed into the climate system because of the extra heat stored up in the oceans. That will play out in our lifetimes and beyond. So some degree of adaptation is sensible and necessary. But it's crucial that we not fool ourselves into thinking that we can adapt to this climate crisis. If we don't begin to sharply reduce CO2 emissions, then there would be no adaptation to the constant reshuffling of the climate deck - rainfall and storms and sea level and soil moisture and diseases and ice melting and all the rest. It would be a different planet from the one on which human beings evolved.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15051572/al_gores_fight_against_the_climate_crisis/print

:cry:

[Duppers]

127. thank you, GR

Al's not throwing in the towel and neither should we, BUT we should not just 'forget about it,' as some anointed ones here suggest we do.


My hubby came home tonight and said he'd been thinking about Lovelock's awful scenario, i.e. it's being too late, etc. He doesn't think that the no. of people will starve that Lovelock projected. He said that Lovelock's over-looking the new advances in solar and wind power; Lovelock knows about it but doesn't think it can be enough for our energy needs. Hubby agrees with some of the folks here who do. Most of the US will have SERIOUS droughts and deforestation will increase, but that we can use desalination for our water needs...which will use more electricity, of course, but most of us can survive.

Mandatory population controls will have to be imposed too. Knowing the rightwing christians, however, they'd rather go to war to fight over the little oil and farm-able land left, than curb their 'child output.'

BUT with irrigation systems as they have in the Middle East using desalinated water, we can still grow food. Our landscapes will change drastically, sadly. Our most of our forests will go, which reduce our oxygen supplies....when that happens, we'll have to start planting and watering trees. We'll have a major reduction in species too. What is most troublesome is the PH of the oceans. A total of three-fourths of the earth’s oxygen supply is produced by phytoplankton in the oceans and our pollution is killing them. So many corrections and adaptations will be needed; but as Al said/thinks, it can be done.

[earth mom]

133. After all that has happened these long 7 years, I too want to jump & think the worst.

I wear this hat :tinfoilhat: a lot!

But what keeps me going is a thread of hope. Al Gore is one of the few people in this country who gives me some of that hope and that's why I don't want to just jump in and buy what Lovelock is saying quite yet. I desperately want Gore in office to put whatever plan he has in motion. This country and planet needs him!

But if Gore doesn't run for President, then I believe that Lovelock's awful scenario will no doubt become reality. :scared: :cry:

[TheWraith]

126. Don't worry about it.

The most pessimistic projections never come true.